A World Meteorological Organization committee of experts has established two new world records for the longest reported distance and the longest reported duration for a single lightning flash in, respectively, Oklahoma (United States of America) and southern France.

US National Centre for Atmospheric Research( NCAR) scientists Doug Kinnison and Michael Mills are co-authors on a new study published in the journal Science. This is an excerpt from a news release by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) member institution, about the study.

June 30, 2016 | Scientists at MIT and elsewhere have identified the “first fingerprints of healing” of the Antarctic ozone layer, published today in the journal Science.

Date: Thursday 30 June 2016, 9:00-12:30Event: High-level meeting at FAO in Rome
The El Niño climate event is having a devastating impact on agriculture in Central America’s Dry Corridor where one of the worst droughts in decades has left 3.5 million people food insecure. In the most affected countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras some 2.8 million people are dependent on food aid.

PRESS RELEASEJune to September Climate Season Forecast
June to September continues to be an important rainfall season for the northern sector as well as the costal and the western areas of the equatorial sector of the Greater Horn of Africa The regional consensus climate outlook for the next four months shows that the rains are likely to be near normal to
above normal over most parts of the Greater Horn of Africa region.

http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/eng/l09.pdf GE.15-21930(E)
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Conference of the Parties
Twenty-first session
Paris, 30 November to 11 December 2015
Agenda item 4(b)
Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (decision 1/CP.17)
Adoption of a protocol, another legal instrument, or an agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties
ADOPTION OF THE PARIS AGREEMENT
Proposal by the President
Draft decision -/CP.21
The Conference of the Parties,

Surprising Discovery of Elite Heat-Tolerant Beans Could Save
“Meat of the Poor” from Global Warming

ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA (25 MARCH 2015)—Amidst fears that global warming could zap a vital source of protein that has sustained humans for centuries, bean breeders with the CGIAR global agriculture research partnership announced today the discovery of 30 new types, or lines as plant breeders refer to them, of “heat-beater” beans that could keep production from crashing in large swaths of bean-dependent Latin America and Africa.

By Patrick Luganda NECJOGHA OnlineWho Speaks for the Climate? Making Sense of Media Reporting on Climate Change

Maxwell Boykoff of the University of Colorado, Boulder in the United States of America has authored an informative book that should help professionals working in the media to come to grips with reporting about climate change from all angles and perspectives.

MOST regions are expected to experience drought to be caused by below normal seasonal rains, a situation which is likely to affect agriculture, food security and water supply.

The Tanzania Meteorological Agency (TMA) Director General, Dr Agnes Kijazi, said in Dar es Salaam on Wednesday that the below normal rains would be triggered by prevailing climate system where the Sea Surface Temperatures (SSTs) in the Central Equatorial Pacific have been uncharacteristically cool for the past two months.

Kakum National Park in Ghana is home to the remaining equatorial rain forest that once covered the African continent.
The Kakum National Park is one of the wonders that could one day end up in the world records. It amazes to imagine walking at a height described as a bird’s eye view.

It is dense and dark, as the lianas that form part of the flora weave around the other plants.